May 2004

1 May 2004
"Red Pepper, breaking a decade; New Labour, broken and decayed,' suggested a wit in the office. But now is not the moment for narrow triumphalism (beyond celebrating the larger font size and the monthly miracle performed in getting the magazine out at all).

1 May 2004
Ten years ago, beginning on 6 April 1994, more than one million Rwandans were massacred in a three-month bloodbath. The dead were mainly Tutsis, the minority ethnic group in Rwanda who made up about 14 percent of the then eight million population. All were unarmed civilians. Their killers, extremists from Rwanda's ruling Hutu majority, had embarked on a premeditated mission: to exterminate an entire people. But it was not only Tutsis who suffered. Tens of thousands of moderate Hutus were also slaughtered because they were political opponents of the one-party Hutu state and natural obstacles to the genocide.

1 May 2004
On the surface, it is a battle of two political wills: the US-led occupation forces ranged against a seditious young cleric, whose brand of political Islam, historical grievance and thwarted nationalism runs deeps among the young, urban, overwhelmingly Shia poor of Iraq's central and southern cities.

1 May 2004
Up to 1000 protestors coursed through the streets of Dakar in April 2004 to protest against a plan aimed at privatising the Senegalese national lottery, LONASE. The protest took place on the same day that the World Bank announced the cancellation of $850m dollars of Senegal's debt.

1 May 2004
Ten years ago, beginning on 6 April 1994, more than one million Rwandans were massacred in a three-month bloodbath. The dead were mainly Tutsis, the minority ethnic group in Rwanda who made up about 14 percent of the then eight million population.

1 May 2004
The sensation caused by the fights of the past weeks and the rhetoric about the deaths and kidnapping of Western guards and journalists are taking our minds away from the economic colonisation of Iraq and the increasingly dramatic life conditions of millions of Iraqis. While contracts for reconstruction proliferate, nothing has been done for those without a job or any subsidy, pension or health care. Even those with a job haven't received a salary for months.

1 May 2004
Adah Kay has been keeping a diary on the Palestine/Israel frontline. Over the coming months in our print magazine, she will be offering a personal insight into life in the West Bank. Here is the first entry.

1 May 2004
In Azerbaijan, oil is known as the Devil's tears - a curse for the desperately poor Azeris and a blessing for their autocratic rulers. Satan cried a lot in this former Soviet satellite state on the west coast of the Caspian Sea. His tears were mostly shed offshore.

1 May 2004
The exploitation of terrorism as a pretext for suspending democratic rights needs to be resisted - not only for the protection of civil liberties and demonised ethnic groups, but also to defend political participation itself.